White men can't sing?

Great Debates
1

I’ve been listening for years to Pop/Top 40 Radio music and the Rick Dees weekly top 40 countdown. I can’t help but notice the lack of whte male singers in Top
40 music. The few white males there are tend to be British (Sting, Elton John, Rod Stewart) and other non-Americans, so there is even a greater lack of white
American male (WAM) singers. To verify this, I went to the Rick Dees website http://www.rickdees.com/ and checked this week’s top 40. I am going to limit this
analysis to solo artitsts and exclude bands, duets, etc. It’s harder to analyze bands and duets because they are often a mixture of races/gender/nationality.

March 17-23, 2001
White American Male (WAM) (2) - #22 Uncle Cracker (is he American?), Bon Jovi.
Other males (4) - Lenny Kravitz #2, Shaggy #3 (2 songs) , Joe, Nelly.
Women (8) - J. Lopez #1, Madonna #4, Pink, Dido, Mya (2 songs) , Lee Ann Womack, Nelly Furtado, Tonya Mitchell.

So, the women singers outnumber the men 8 to 6. The WAM only have 2, compared to a combined 12 for the women and other non-WAMS. In terms of songs,
the difference is even greater because one woman and one non-WAM male has 2 songs each on the list.

Now look at the Dees website’s Top 80 of the 1990s. The difference is even more pronounced:
White American Male (WAM) (2)- Sugar Ray 2 songs, Vanilla Ice.
Other males (6) - Seal, Ricky Martin, Bryan Adams, Elton John, Michael Jackson, Prince 2.
Women (20) - Natalie Imbrulia #1, Donna Lewis #2, Dionne Ferris (?), Celine Dion 3 songs, Whitney Houston 2, Sherly Crow, Mariah Cary 6, Janet Jackson 3,
Jewel 2, Britney Spears, Alanis Morissette 2, Meredith Brooks, Vanessa Williams, Madonna, Lisa Loeb, Patty Smith, Paula Adbul, Sinead O’Connor, Karyn
White, Shanice (?).

There are still only 2 WAM singers, but a whopping 26 women and other males, including 20 women. In terms of songs, there are only 3 by WAMS, but 39 by
non-Wams–32 by women and 7 by other males.

Wasn’t the Lilith Fair of recent years all about promoting women singers because they aren’t as popular as men singers? What the hell where they thinking? Women
are far more over-represented than male singers, especially than WAMS. If we want equality, we don’t need Lilith Fairs, we need Bubba Fairs to promote white male
singers. Why can’t White American Males become popular Top 40 singers? Are our voices not pleasing?

2

The posting lined up perfectly when I did a preview reply. I don’t know why the margins got messed up when I posted.

3

I’d like to think it’s because the really good singers and writers don’t write stuff for Top 40 Pop Pablum.

Try looking into Americana (otherwise known as Non-Nashvegas Country): Todd Snider, Steve Earle, Lyle Lovett, Robert Earl Keene, Jr., etc.

I also don’t understand why you’d exclude bands. The Old 97s is made up of four white men. So why don’t the two song-writers and lead singers in the band, Rhett Miller and Murray Hammond, count?

4

Then I’d say your little survey is pretty much invalid. I’m sorry, but you don’t ignore crucial data because it’s “harder to analyze”.

5

A field trip to the local opera house might address these concerns. Another option would be to examine the demographics among voice majors at some fine arts colleges or conservatories where I think white men will be, in number, second only to white women.

I don’t think of achieving Top 40 status as being a true test of vocal abilities. I consider that to be a test of an artist’s market awareness.

6

Then pretend my title says “Why can’t white men sing solo in top 40?”. I didn’t think that sounded as catchy, so I condensed it. Anyway, this isn’t a PhD thesis, just a casual discussion, and I think my subject and supporting evidence are more than adequate for that. Feel free to extend the analysis to bands, duets, and other callobarations, but I don’t have time now.

Those of you who point out the other genres, Americana, Country, Opera, those are good points. However, Top 40 is where the fame and fortune are, and I am still puzzled why there are so few WAMs.

7

I’ll pretend you’re title says “Why do Top-40 white American male singers seem to be part of a group, while others tend to be solo artists?”, because it makes more sense.

Look at it this way - of the Top-40 list you gave, 16 were solo artists, and 34 were groups. Considering the fact that you didn’t give any info about 78% of the list, I’d hazard to guess that about 25 of those groups were fronted by white male Americans. Kinda reverses your OP, doesn’t it.

8

Cheese Head wrote:

It’s because you put hard returns (you hit the Enter key) at the end of each line. Let the word-wrapping feature take care of the innards of each paragraph for you, and reserve the use of hard returns for ending a paragraph instead of ending each line.

9

**Cheese Head wrote:

Those of you who point out the other genres, Americana, Country, Opera, those are good points. However, Top 40 is where the fame and fortune are, and I am still puzzled why there are so few WAMs.**

It is? Let’s see how many people remember Frank Sinatra over “New Kids on the Block” in the next 10 to 15 years.

Like all things, popular music goes in cycles. Go back 25 years and you’ll find the field dominated by all-male bands and solo male singers. We’re just going thru a swing of the pendulum.

10

Thanks for the tip. However, it’s a shame Preview Reply does not make it look the same as Submit Reply. Otherwise, what’s the point of using Preview?

11

Cheese Head: It’s worse than that. If you change the width of your web browser’s window, you will get YET ANOTHER layout of the text as it is word-wrapped to the new window’s size.

The idea with word-wrapping is that no matter WHAT size any user adjusts his browser to, the text within a paragraph will still “flow” to fill the entire available width assigned to it. That’s why you need to reserve the use of the Enter key for new paragraphs.

12

Top 40 is one way to get fame and fortune, but there are other ways which are just as important (if not more), such as consistency, all-time best-selling, etc. Let’s see if these stats don’t grab ya …

Consecutive Gold Albums

  1. Beatles - 39 - 4 white British guys
  2. Rolling Stones - 37 - (very many) white (mostly) British guys
  3. Kiss - 23 - 4(+) white American guys
  4. Rush - 22 (23?) - 3 Canadian guys
  5. Aerosmith - 21 - 5(?) white American guys

Total Certified Album Sales (link)

  1. Beatles - 151.5
  2. Led Zeppelin - 100.5
  3. Garth Brooks - 100
  4. Barbara Streisand - 66 (first female)
  5. Michael Jackson - 54.5 (first non-white(?))
  6. Mariah Carey - 52 (first non-white female)

Best Selling Albums of All Time (link)

  1. Eagles:Their Greatest Hits
  2. Michael Jackson:Thriller (first non-white(?))
  3. Pink Floyd:The Wall
  4. Fleetwood Mac:Rumours (first non-all male)
  5. Prince & The Revolution:Purple Rain (second non-white)
  6. Whitney Houston:Whitney Houston (first non-white female)

(This list doesn’t include number 10, The Bodygaurd soundtrack, which could be considered Whitney Houston)

Most Gold & Platinum Albums (link)

  1. Elvis Presley - 80
  2. Barbara Streisand - 41 (first female)
  3. Beatles - 39

(only 14 were listed, none of which were non-white)

Doesn’t look like the white males are doing too badly …

13

Gene Simmons isn’t American.

14

Monocracy, thanks for the research. It shows that WAMs do better in groups than as solo singers, like Alessan hypothesized. Also, white men do well as game show hosts:
http://slate.msn.com/culturebox/entries/01-04-05_103805.asp

15

I took a closer look at Monocracy’s lists. Most of the white male bands he lists were not Americans: Beatles, Zeppelin, Rush, Stones, Pink Floyd. So, it still looks to me like the White American Male singer does not do well in top 40, either solo or in a band.